Resnik Among Women Honored

LOS ANGELES — Challenger astronaut Judy Resnik and other women scientists were honored Friday in the opening of a museum exhibit meant to offer renewed hope to future generations of space explorers.

``We hope the dreams of Judy Resnik will be reaffirmed for new generations of men and women,`` said Richard Perry, a spokesman for the California Museum of Science and Industry.

The exhibit features Resnik, who perished with the rest of the crew in Tuesday`s space shuttle explosion, and 11 other women scientists as role models for young women.

Titled My Daughter, the Scientist, the exhibit includes televised interviews in which the honorees discuss their abilities, the roadblocks they faced and how they juggled having families and careers.

In Resnik`s interviews, she discusses how training for the shuttle made the crew ``a very close family`` and the pride she took in making a contribution to science.

She also discussed the excitement of her job, although never the danger. Riding the shuttle, she said, ``is a kick in the pants. Essentially, it is like a bumpy train ride.``

The 36-year-old mission specialist for the Challenger also was a classical pianist and research scientist with a doctorate in electrical engineering. She became an astronaut in 1978. During her first space flight in 1984, she operated the shuttle`s arm to delicately break away ice that had formed on the shuttle Discovery.

Planning started last year for the exhibit, which originally was meant to encourage young women interested in science.

The other scientists honored in the exhibit are Sylvia Earle, curator and a research biologist for the California Academy of Science in San Francisco; Margaret Burbidge, director of the astrophysics center at the University of California at San Diego; Mildred Dresselhaus, a professor of electrical engineering and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Also Anita Harris, a research biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey; Jerre Levy, a biopsychologist at the University of Chicago; Susan McKinley, an organic chemist for Dow Chemical; Joanne Morris, a civil engineer for Bevins Consultant Inc. in Chicago.

Also Suzanne Nadel, a ceramics engineer at AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey; Estelle Ramey, an endocrinologist for Georgetown University Medical School; Shirley Jackson, a condensed matter theorist for AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey; and Joanne Simpson, head of the severe storms division at NASA`s Goodard Space Flight Center.